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Queen's Battery.-Two 7" guns.
Waldegrave Battery.-Two 64-pounders.
Quidi Vidi and other harbours available for easy landing to be protected by field guns. The Narrows to be closed, if possible, with torpedoes.
Harbour Grace.
No batteries should be erected. The best defence would be an armed vessel; and, failing that, 40-pounder or 20-pounder Armstrong guns, mounted on travelling carriages, so as to be easily moved to the points threatened.
The Channel should be closed with torpedoes.
(Signed)
J. L. ELGEE, Colonel, R.A., Commanding the Troops, British North America.
No. 165.
Governor-General the Earl of Dufferin to the Right Hon. Sir M. E. Hicks Beach, Bart.-
(Received June 8, 1878.)
(Telegraphic. Paraphrase.)
THE batteries at the entrance to the harbour of Esquimalt and on Beacon Hill, which have been proposed by the War Office Committee, are being mounted. Organization of a local force is being undertaken by one of our best officials, who has been sent over for that purpose. The Government will do everything possible, Mr. A. Mackenzie informs me, to make Esquimalt and Victoria safe in accordance with the plan which has been suggested.
Ministers are fully sensible of importance of doing everything that is possible.
No. 166.
Admiralty to Colonial Office.
Admiralty, June 10, 1878.
(Confidential.) Sir,
I HAVE laid before my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty your further letter of the 31st May,* with its inclosures, recommending that the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy should be occupied by a squadron of swift and lightly-armed steamers for the purpose of coping with any similar vessels which may be purchased by the enemy from various American ports, and to protect the shipping in the Atlantic in the event of
war.
2. In reply I am to acquaint you, for the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that the subject referred to in this correspondence has occupied the attention of the Board of Admiralty for some time past, and arrangements have been made, so far as the means at the disposal of the Admiralty will admit, for checking the depredations which will doubtless be undertaken at the outbreak of war by an enemy's fast cruizers on the commercial shipping of this country.
3. Experience has shown during the American Civil War that it is a matter of extreme difficulty, if not of impossibility, to prevent much mischief being done in this way by a single fast cruizer, notwithstanding great efforts to capture her. It rests with Her Majesty's Government to decide when the time shall have arrived for the naval forces to be increased to the extent required to meet this danger, which increase will involve a very large money expenditure.
4. Looking at the very large mercantile marine possessed by the Dominion, it is only reasonable to assume that the Canadian Government will avail themselves of their own resources for the protection of Canadian ports and shipping, and my Lords trust that Her Majesty's Government will readily aid any such efforts by the loan of guns (which the Dominion does not appear to possess), to arm their vessels, which would certainly exceed in number and speed any force a European Power at war with England could readily acquire on the Atlantic sea-board.
[793]
* No. 139.
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I am, &c.
(Signed)
ROBERT HALL.
F
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